


Ten Times Ianto Jones Thought he was Going to Die (And one Time he Didn't Want to)

by Call_Me_Tears



Category: Torchwood
Genre: 10 + 1 things, 5+1 Things, Beta Read, Canon Compliant, F/M, M/M, Not A Fix-It, canonical deaths, kind of, more like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:33:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28545669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Call_Me_Tears/pseuds/Call_Me_Tears
Summary: Ianto Jones knew he was going to die at a young age. But that didn't mean he wanted to in the end.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones, Lisa Hallett/Ianto Jones
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	Ten Times Ianto Jones Thought he was Going to Die (And one Time he Didn't Want to)

**Author's Note:**

> This is completely canon compliant and more of just a first try at writing anything Janto. Please let me know if you like it! This is edited by the lovely, amazing, talented [mystic-writes](https://mystic-writes.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr!

When Ianto Jones was four he thought he was going to die. 

He placed a chair right up against the old, rickety fridge, stretched as high as he could, and scooted the ceramic cookie jar closer. He pulled with his little fingers, barely tall enough to reach it in the first place, all the way to the edge. He reached up with both his hands, but without anything holding onto the back of the dining room chair, it tipped over backwards, and Ianto, and the cookie jar, fell to the ground. Not before, however, the back of Ianto's skull impacted with the corner of the counter. As he sat on the floor, he didn't really know what death was. He wasn't crying or really in that much pain. He just sat there, blood pooling from behind his head, clutching the cookie jar to his chest. 

His grandmother had run into the kitchen and screamed, rushing over to him after procuring a perfectly white tea towel from what seemed like nowhere, and placed it on the back of his head. The ride to the hospital was uneventful, and Ianto can't remember much about it except that he held the towel to the back of his head, and it was completely red by the time they arrived. 

Ianto didn't think he was going to die until the doctor brought out a shiny, silver gun, pressed it to the back of his head, and pulled the trigger. 

**_CA-CUNK_ **

Ianto got seven staples in the back of his head, but he didn't die. 

* * *

When Ianto Jones was twelve he thought he was going to die. 

Sitting in the back of a police car, his hands in his pockets, still tightly gripping the lighter he just stole, Ianto didn't think he was going to die. He was uncomfortable and nervous and scared of what his mother would say, but he didn't think he would die. 

When the male officer put handcuffs around his wrists and led him inside the station, he didn't think he was going to die. When a female officer put her hands into his pockets and grabbed at him, he was uncomfortable and wanted to get away, but he didn't think he was going to die. When he was put into the holding cell, and left to sit and think about what he did with four other men and two women in the cell with him, all sitting in silence, he didn't think he would die. 

When his mother showed up, and Ianto saw the look on her face, he thought he was going to die. 

She didn't look angry or upset at him like he thought she would, but instead she looked sad. She wasn't looking at him, her eyes turned away to her own hands, and Ianto knew she was sad at herself. She raised a son who stole lighters from Tesco and corner shops. 

He honestly wanted to die. He didn't want to make his mother upset at herself. She could be mad at him, and he would be upset, but her being mad at herself broke his heart. He was going to die from a broken heart. 

But he didn't. 

* * *

When Ianto Jones was fifteen he thought he was going to die. 

Ianto didn't die when his father had his heart attack, or when he went to the hospital with him in the ambulance, or when he watched him fade away before the doctors could even open the doors. He didn't think he was going to die when he had to go and pick out his father's casket because his mother was too distraught. He didn't think he was going to die when his father's body was laid to rest in the earth, and he placed a single flower on the fresh dirt. 

Ianto didn't cry very often, being taught that boys didn't cry. So Ianto held it in. He didn't cry that entire time, staying strong for his mother and his grandmother. 

Ianto Jones didn't think he was going to die when he got home, and helped his mother into the guest bedroom because she couldn't sleep in the bed she once shared with her late husband, who had only been gone for a week. 

But when Ianto stepped foot into their room, and saw his father's tie, the one he used to teach Ianto how to tie ties, he finally broke down. And he felt like he was going to die. 

Ianto sat down on the ground in front of the blue tie with little white flowers on it, a gift from his mother to his father when Ianto was born. Ianto cried because it was his father's second favourite tie. His first favourite was buried with him, an orange and yellow plaid tie, and Ianto knew he would never see it again. 

But Ianto didn't die. 

* * *

When Ianto Jones was twenty, he thought he would die. 

He finally asked the girl he had a crush on out on a date with him. He didn't think he would die when he stumbled over his words, or when she said yes, despite him barely being able to get the words out. He didn't think he would die when he showed up to her place four minutes late, when she was standing out in the cold waiting for him to pick her up, and she told him his tie wasn't knotted correctly when she got into his car. He didn't feel like he would die when the restaurant he had booked a reservation at said he didn't, and proceeded to make them wait half an hour for a table to open up. 

No, Ianto didn't feel like dying until about forty five minutes into the dinner, when he reached across the table to grab the salt, and bumped his wrist into his glass of wine, sending the liquid all over his pasta, and into his lap, as well as shattering the glass as it rolled off the table and onto the floor. 

Ianto felt his cheeks heat up and he scrambled to apologise as she just laughed. She helped him clean up, and even offered to drive herself home, so he wouldn't have to drive as far in soiled trousers. 

But Ianto didn't die. 

And three days later Lisa took Ianto out on another date. 

* * *

When Ianto Jones was twenty two, he thought he was going to die. 

Well, he thought everyone was going to die, but he was scared for himself, and he was scared for Lisa. He didn't know where she was, and there were Cybermen chasing him. Every time he turned a corner, another one seemed to appear, and he had to turn back the way he came. 

" _I'm going to die,_ " he thought to himself as he sprinted down the stark white hallways of Torchwood one. _"I'm going to die and I'm never going to find Lisa. Oh, Lisa where are you?_ " 

Finally, he found her. Strapped to a table, metal fused with her skin, and she was screaming out in pain. 

That scream seeped into his bones and he thought they were going to shatter, and he would die. When he pulled her out of the wreckage that used to be Torchwood one, she was crying, and he was crying too. After his father's death, he didn't actually cry much more, but Ianto thought he was going to lose Lisa too. 

He dragged her now heavy body back to their shared flat, and decided then and there he would help her as much as he could, and that he wouldn't die until he saved her. 

And so, Ianto Jones didn't die. 

Four weeks later he moved back to Cardiff and met Captain Jack Harkness. 

* * *

When Ianto Jones was Twenty Two and six months, he wanted more than anything to die. 

Ianto had never been attracted to men before. In fact, he hadn't really been attracted to women until he met Lisa. And while Ianto was never told growing up that liking boys was bad, he heard the things the other kids said when he was young, the hurtful comments they threw others’ way when they didn't like them. So Ianto just thought that wasn't something he would ever do. 

And then he met Captain Jack Harkness. 

When he smiled, Ianto's stomach twisted and shot up into his throat. When he winked, Ianto's lungs stopped working and he forgot how to breathe as he looked into those impossibly blue and impossibly old eyes. 

And yet he begged, and pleaded, and still was denied the job at Torchwood three. 

So Ianto bought a suit. And a pocket watch. He dressed up, made himself look nice. With how much the man flirted, Ianto knew he could get him to do anything if he looked good enough. If the captain was going to play with him, he was going to play right back. 

But Ianto didn't want to die until he landed on top of Captain Jack Harkness after trying to catch the Pteranodon. His face flushed as he felt himself pressed against the older man's thigh, and he saw the knowing smirk playing across those perfect lips. 

He wanted to die when he couldn't say anything, breathing heavily from the running and chasing. He wanted to die when they finally caught the damn dinosaur, and the captain said, "I like the suit." 

And Ianto Jones wanted to die when he had to shuffle awkwardly out of the warehouse because he knew he was showing through the loose fabric off his trousers. 

But Ianto didn't die. And he reported in for work with Torchwood three the next day, wearing his new suit and pocket watch. 

* * *

When Ianto Jones was Twenty-Three and one month, he thought he was going to die. 

He wanted to die. He could feel his heart shatter in his chest, and for a moment, he thought that he actually was dead. He might have been. He wanted to be. 

But then he felt lips against his, someone kissing him, and he gasped awake. He looked into those blue eyes he had gotten to know so we'll, but all he could think about was Lisa's eyes, and how he could see nothing left of her in them. 

Ianto was glad no one else was around to have seen what just happened, and he was sure if anyone did, he would die all over again. 

But no one was there, and Ianto was alive. 

And he may or may not have had a crush on his incredibly attractive boss. 

* * *

When Ianto Jones was Twenty-Three and nine months, he didn't know how he didn't die. 

It was his first time out in the field since he joined, and he had been given one of the more routine jobs he could have been given. Help Jack capture a Weevil and bring it back. 

Ianto hoped he didn't die on the way over as Jack was talking in the driver's seat about what they would name this one. They already had Janet and Gertrude, and they needed a new name for this one. Jack was thinking Hilda but then started talking about this person he had sex with once named Hilda and how that would just feel weird. 

"What do you think, Ianto?" Jack asked, finally wondering about the Welshman's opinion. 

Ianto though just shrugged and said, "I dunno. Maybe Francine?" 

Jack grinned that amazingly stunning grin and turned his attention back to the road as the light turned green, peeling off at double the speed limit towards where Tosh said the Weevil was. 

Ianto hoped he didn't die when he was stood in front of the Weevil, in front of Francine, gun in one hand and anti-weevil spray in the other, looking into its eyes and seeing nothing but an animalistic urge to kill. 

Pain shot through Ianto's arm as he tried to lift up the spray bottle, but he only managed to drop it onto the ground. 

"Ianto!" He heard Jack call out, and he barely had enough time to register the feeling of claws digging into his chest, swiping across his pecs. Except it was only for a moment, before he heard the creak of metal, a loud scraping sound, before feeling slight pain again. 

The Weevil pulled its hand back and Ianto's pocket watch fell to the floor with a clink that reverberated off the walls of the empty parking garage. 

Jack sprinted in and sprayed Francine with his own spray, causing her to clutch her face like she'd just been pepper sprayed, and he clicked a pair of alien handcuffs around her wrists, before shoving her into the back of the Torchwood van. 

Ianto was still looking at his broken timepiece when Jack walked up to him. 

"Ianto! Are you alright?" Jack reached out, and at that moment, Ianto finally looked up. 

He went to speak but his mouth was full of cotton as he tried to force words out. "Yeah. Yeah. She just grazed me," he says, finally. "Shit." 

Ianto leans down and grabs the broken pocket watch from the ground, and a spring flies out as he moves it, landing somewhere in the big open space, creating reverberations along the walls. 

Jack leaned forwards, placing a hand on Ianto's good arm, and Ianto can't, shouldn't, be held responsible for his actions. 

He surged forward and smashed his lips against Jack's, grabbing his navy RAF coat by the lapels as he kissed him. This was his first time kissing Jack after the man kissed him on the floor of the hub. After he died.

Jack kissed him back for a moment, before pushing Ianto away. The Welshman panted as he gripped the broken clock in his hand, staring at his boss whom he had just snogged. 

"Ianto, do you really want to..." Jack asked, and Ianto didn't need to hear the rest of it to know what Jack was asking. 

And instead of answering, he just grabbed Jack's lapels again, kissing him once more. 

When he got back to the hub, Owen remarked that he'd have a nasty bruise from where the Weevil hit him on the neck. Ianto couldn't help but think of Jack as a Weevil after that. 

Ianto hadn't died, and he sure was glad about that. Also, he needed a new timepiece. 

* * *

When Ianto Jones was Twenty-Five, he didn't want to die, but he knew he would. 

Ianto didn't spend his twenty-fifth birthday celebrating. He didn't spend it getting a pint with his co-workers. He didn't even spend it in Jack's bed. 

No, he spent it alone with just his thoughts to keep him up at night. He had never told his co-workers his birthday, and so they carried on like it was just any other day. But it wasn't just any other day, not for Ianto. Because Ianto was twenty-five. 

He couldn't stop thinking about everyone he used to work with, and how they all used to joke about how "No one who's ever worked at Torchwwood has ever lived past the age of twenty-five" But Ianto did it. He lived. He actually survived. And everyone he knew who made those jokes died before the age of twenty-five. 

Owen and Tosh used to joke about that. About how they were exceptions to the rule, how they outlived Torchwood. The only one of them who would truly outlive Torchwood was Jack. Ianto knew he never would. He knew he would die. But he lived longer than most. He lived longer than Tosh and Owen. 

Toshiko was thirty-three when she died. Much older than most, but then again, she didn't join Torchwood until she was twenty-four. She was set up for greatness. Owen Harper was only twenty-eight. He survived three years longer than he thought he would. If Ianto was being honest, he didn't think Owen would last a year longer than twenty-five. 

So when Ianto Jones turned twenty-five, he did so alone, with nothing more than a fleeting thought, and the knowledge that he probably wouldn't survive to the end of the year. 

* * *

Ianto Jones was Twenty-Five and ten months when he last thought he would die. 

Having never encountered a Dalek before, he didn't exactly know what to expect, but thanks to Gwen's quick thinking and Tosh's old code, they were safe inside a time bubble. 

That didn't stop the hair from rising on the back of his neck every time he glanced at the creature. It's cold, metal exterior sending a chill up his spine every time. When Gwen passed him the far too large alien gun, and they had positioned themselves away from the Dalek's range of fire, Ianto truly knew what it was like to feel fear. 

Gwen continued time, Ianto fired, and before the Dalek could turn to look at him, its head had exploded. 

Ianto didn't breathe until he knew the thing was actually dead. And even then, he was still scared of dying. 

It wasn't until Jack came back to him and kissed him, held him in his arms, that he knew he was truly safe. 

* * *

Ianto Jones was Twenty-Five and eleven months when he didn't want to die. 

He knew for a while he didn't want to die. The idea of letting a Weevil latch on and maul him hadn't crossed his mind in years. Not even when Tosh and Owen died. 

Because Ianto Jones was in love, for the second time in his life. 

He had everything he could ever want, and the man he had it with was perfect. He truly thought he would live forever with Jack. Never growing old, never dying. With Jack he felt invincible. 

But life doesn't work that way. 

No, Ianto didn't want to die when he was trapped in the room with Jack and the 456. He wanted to keep fighting because he knew Jack wouldn't die. As he took in lung-fulls of poisoned air, he reached out towards Jack. 

"I-" he tried to say but Jack cut him off. 

"No, please, I'm not losing you!" Jack screamed, trying to move towards Ianto. But he couldn't. 

Ianto took in another breath as he said, "No. Jack, listen." Ianto knew he was going to die. He wanted to fight as hard as he could, but he knew it was pointless. There was no fighting. "Please… listen to me…" Ianto tried to say but he could barely breathe, his words little more than a whisper. "I- I love…" Ianto couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. All he knew was Jack. Jack would be alright. Jack was okay. Jack would live. "... _you…_ " he managed to whisper before the last of his breath left his lungs. 

He closed his eyes as he struggled to breathe, and he could hear Jack screaming at him to hold on, he could feel the man's lips on his, he knew the man loved him back. 

And as Ianto slipped away, he smiled. He lived longer than he thought. He lasted longer than Tosh and Owen, he lasted longer than Suzie, who he didn't know very well but knew he had to remember, even if she wasn't a good person in the end. 

Ianto lived, and loved, and kissed, and laughed and knew he would never change anything for the world. 

And when Ianto Jones was Twenty-Six, he died. 


End file.
